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RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!
Subject:RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ! From:"Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com> To:"Moshe Kruger (AllWrite)" <moshe -dot- kruger -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:44:04 -0500
That's the route I'm going to go -- edit his text to conform to departmental style.
________________________________________
From: Moshe Kruger (AllWrite) [mailto:moshe -dot- kruger -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:29 AM
To: Downing, David
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!
I say, "take it like a man."
We are writers, but no-one has a handle on the technical know-how like the developers. Our aim is to be understood and to make the system accessible. Our aim is not to win writing prizes. If that SME has assisted in making the text easier to understand, thank him and move on.
Having said that, now that he has written the text, you have license to edit it to conform to "departmental style" change the language and so on, without changing the meaning.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Downing, David <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com> wrote:
The other day, I held a document review meeting, and one of the SMEs
told me I needed to rewrite the description of a particular function to
clarify it. Okay, fair enough. I rewrite the passages (and made various
other revisions from the meeting) and sent out the revised text to
everyone. I got an email back from this particular SME this morning in
which he completely rewrite the function description for me. I'm not
sure whether to be
- Grateful to him for trying to be helpful.
- Angry with him for not keeping his place and trying to usurp my role.
Hey, I'M the writer.
- Insulted, because he's decided I can't write. Rather than telling me
the passage heeds further clarification, he's thrown up his hands and
just said, "Looks like I need to write this for him."
One thing's for sure -- what he wrote does NOT conform to our
departmental style.
How would you take it -- and has anything like this happened to any of
you?
(And I'm going to check the "To" filed in this email very carefully
before sending it. I've made the mistake several times recently of
sending messages to the list that were meant for someone else. It would
be just my luck, that I would send this message meant for the list to
the SME by mistake.)
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authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial. http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
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